


We need to talk.

by skinnylittlered



Category: British Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5040925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinnylittlered/pseuds/skinnylittlered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the dress is right, but the man is not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	We need to talk.

_No phones, no laptops, no TV; just dinner_ , she’s said, and now, sitting at the table, white noise burning in her ears as the only sound in the living room is the clink of cutlery against china, not knowing when, how, or even  _if_  to begin, she finds herself questioning this decision in particular, and all those she made along the course of the past year, attributing it to the lack of caloric intake she’s undergone for at least a month now, when she’s first noticed his face no longer lit up when he returned home from work, in favour of some sort of polite acknowledgement, the same one he throws his fans’ way whenever they’re a little too eager and he’s just not in the mood. Except it’s usually sympathetic with them, while she is met aloof indifference. Finally admitting to herself that, however much she chews, nothing is going to go past the knot in her throat, she settles for just messing with the nearly untouched meal – not daring to glance at him for the briefest of instants to see that he’s doing very much the same – trying to figure out what exactly it was that went wrong, that’s got the man near her, sometimes excessively communicative as she’s heard he was from nativity and had the tiring pleasure of experiencing herself, so silent and downright forlorn, unable to stop this nagging sentiment that it is her fault, that she should have known that this would happen, for it was a risk she took when agreeing to a blind date set up by a common friend of theirs, recently married, with a self-acclaimed  _nose for romance_. She should have known those awkward silences weren’t as awkward as they were  _empty_ , empty of some common ground other than shared tastes in music and literature, when they filled it with mindblowing sex, both aware that it was too good too early, that they were overcompensating, forcing it, because she was hot and he was hot, and they could both see themselves marrying the other, looking good together on the red carpet like some kind of fresh brangelina, some kind of morbid honorary british royalty. Portmanteaus, despite whatever the, at best questionable, writers at  _Cosmopolitan_  might say, are not enough to validate a relationship, and it is only now, a year and an awkward proposal later that she bitterly realises it.

And all it took was the right dress.

The one, most craved moment of a soon to be married woman’s preparation for the magnum opus of all the party throwing she’s to ever accomplish in the rest of her terrestrial existence, is that, after denying herself the entirety of little culinary indulgencies she might’ve, ashamedly or not, indulged in so far, and, usually, a large number of dinners, too, of putting on that one dress, that one, possibly least expected dress, that deconstructs her fiancé persona and turns it into a bride. The dress is a celebration in itself. The dress  _should_  be a celebration in itself.

Her mother cried when she found her dress. So did her sisters, her bridesmaids, and even her father seemed especially misty-eyed at the sight at her. Beautiful white silk, and the slightest of gems finely embroidered into it, grandiose in volume, but appearing as a feather, the dress seemed more of an extension of her milky complexion rather than a garment strange to her until a few minutes ago. And she could she herself being led by the (now actually sobbing) man through the chapel, but the man at the end of the way did not resemble Tom by any means imaginable. The man at the altar had yet to be given a face.

“What have we done?”

A short silence before, placing his fork down, he answers simply, without any of the ornamental speech or inflexion his admirers are used to him producing when addressed.

“We lied. To our loved ones. To ourselves.”

And with that she agrees, because, by professing the noblest of sentiments to one that she barely knew, barely liked, she betrayed the validity of the very same one when being spoken with genuineness, with real, actual feeling. She decimated the truth of that, perverting it to a flimsy, to a juvenile whim she now finds inexcusable.

_I am a fraud._

“We’re both to blame. Either of us could have stopped it, but neither did. We’re both to blame.”

She curiously looks at his face, as if she’s seeing him for the first time in years, as if he’s a friend returned from the longest journey a man could take at the end of which he’d still be remembered, and she’s surprised to find that the man is looking right into her eyes – something they hardly do outside of sex – looking at  _her_ , not at her ass, not at her achievements, not at parentage or background. And then she’s staring at him, right back into his eyes, and the movies are good, and the Oscars even better, but there’s a man, a  _man_ , sitting across from her, a man who looks downright fucking worn out, a man who, in spite of this, reached to clasp her hand in his, just as her mother would do when comforting her.

 _Relief._  Tom Hiddleston exists more than Hollywood’s sweetheart. Tom Hiddleston is human.

The thought of it is hilarious, so she laughs, barely forming the words that, ultimately, get Tom laughing, too.

“Tom, how the  _fuck_  did we get here?”

And laughing is good. Laughing decompresses both of them and their little, newly acquisitioned flat that was to be their home, vibrating against walls and windows, a wild rumble in their tummies and music to their ears. There’s nothing more to prove, there’s no more pressure, there’s only the two of them and the truth out in the open and she swears she has never, not even after lemon water detox for a whole damned month, felt lighter, cleaner, prouder.

And, for the first time, they talk.

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME TO THE- I’m so fucking tired I’m in actual pain- NEW FOLLOWER - *bones crack* - @peacelovesweets. Have fun and all that *tiredly pops confetti*.
> 
> I’m sleepy. School’s kicking my butt. I love it but it hurts so much.
> 
> * ‘what is love, baby don’t hurt me’ playing sadly in the background*
> 
> *Red doses off while talking*
> 
> Thank you for reading, lovelies, and you stay golden! *honeyed milk for everyone*


End file.
